Update on My 2008 White
As you may remember, I'm making 20 or so cases of chardonnay-viognier at Sannino Bella Vita Vineyard this year. A couple weeks ago, I went out to the winemaking center to taste its progress, help rack the wine and talk with owners Lisa and Anthony Sannino.
This picture is looking down into the tank after we pumped the wine out to clean out the lees and tartrate crystals. It took quite a bit of scrubbing to get the tank completely clean, a not-so-subtle reminder that winemaking is 80% cleaning.
The final blend is 60% viognier and 40% chardonnay (both lots of fruit sourced from Martha Clara Vineyards), all fermented in stainless steel without any malo-lactic fermentation. It it's youth, the wine is showing some nice citrus (grapefruit, lemon rind) flavors with pear and apple in the background. We might make a slight adjustment to the acidity to make it a bit brighter, but I'm very pleased with the progress so far.
We'll probably be bottling in about 6 weeks.
I’m curious about what you are planning for filtration.
Was this the first racking?
Did you stir the lees after fermentation stopped?
Making my first white this year as well and kind of winging it.
This was the second racking.
No intentional stirring.
Will let you know about filtration!
Ugh your so lucky. Im still unbelievable angry at the person I made arrangements with to buy grapes. I went to go pay him and he told me, with a strait face, he “sold em” to someone else. Saboteur! I had spent about $1,000 + over the summer on the crusher, press, and the necessary carboys and such. Its definitely a crushing set back (no pun intended) for someone just getting in to wine and hoping to make their first vintage. (It didn’t help my feelings for him when I went to open a bottle of wine I had previously bought from him, and the cork disintegrated and the wine stank, and then the same thing happened to his second bottle I tried.) So alas, I did two batches of plum wine, and I guess Ill try some cider or beer till next harvest.
that a crazy lees tartaric acid cake picture!
can’t wait to try it
John - Can’t wait to try the lees tartaric acid cake?
haha Jared - yes lees tartaric cakes with a scoop of ice cream are my favorite!
of course I meant the wine!
By the looks of the tartaric crystals, they already cold stabilized it for you?
Actually, after we cleaned out the tank, we moved it outside and pumped the wine back in…to throw even MORE crystals.
We definitely will throw some more tartrates with the temperatures we are having. I just checked the tank and it is actually starting to get a little slushy with this cold. Nothing to worry about except getting closer to filtering and bottling.We are most likely going to set the filter up with fine and sterile filtration pads so that we completely inhibit ML. Clarity is good even without any filtration, but when complete we should be brilliant. The aromatics are so intense that the filtering will have little effect on them.